COOTE’S HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 
ing multitude. New treason laws were* 
proposed by Mr. Pitt and Lord Gren- 
ville. Rebellion and horrid havoc broke 
loose in Ireland, and were with difficulty 
restrained in Scotland and in England. 
At length ministers determined to ne- 
gociate for peace, and the public mind 
softened. 
A meritorious treaty of commerce 
had been concluded in 1794, with the 
American states: but the judgment fre- 
quently displayed by Mr. Pitt, in ques- 
tions of commerce and finance, deserted 
him in 1796, when his subsidies reduced 
the Bank of England to stop payment. 
It was proved that excessive advances 
to the government had occasioned the 
temporary embarrassment: a loan to 
repay these advances, and a_ speedy 
coinage of specie, would soon have re- 
stored the ancient order of payment, 
particularly after the publication of ac- 
counts which demonstrated the solvency 
of the bank. A preference was unwise- 
ly given to that system of forced circu- 
lation, which continues to enrich the 
proprietors of bank-stock, and to alarm 
and oppress the inferior classes of com- 
merce; and which, in case of invasion 
or public terror, threatens to render im- 
practicable in the metropolis the pay- 
ment of the taxes or of the stockholders. 
~ In 1797, Lord Moira and Mr. Fox 
strenuously recommended in parliament, 
to ministers, a milder conduct towards 
the Irish than was unhappily adopted. 
_—Repressive measures were employed 
which no provocations could have justi- 
fied: tortures, burnings, capricious de- 
solations, arbitrary executions, precau- 
tionary slaughter. Before the resort to 
such extremities, mimisters ought to have 
made the emancipation of the catholics 
a condition of their continuance in office. 
That is a tardy humanity which only 
sets in, now they have ceased to be the 
persecutors employed. 
After alluding to atrocities which ex- 
act the moral indignation of the calmest 
historian, itis scarcely excusable to waste 
criticism on the conduct of the foreign 
war. Yet it deserves perpetual’ notice 
that the fanaticism of the anti-jacobins 
was the principal cause of its miscon- 
duct, and that the interests of the nation 
were in-every thing forgotten for the 
interests of the sect. Time was when 
235 
the Girondist rulers of France had in- 
directly offered, through the mouth of 
Condorcet, the cession of Madagascar 
and its appurtenances to Britain, as the 
reward of little more than the bare re- 
cognition of a forthcoming constitution, 
which by subdividing France into sepa- 
rate federal states, would have paralyzed 
her strength for future offensive war- 
fare. The creed of the anti-jacobins 
forbad the acknowledgment of authori- 
ties originating with the people; and 
the opportunity was lost. 
Time was, after the taking of Valen- 
ciennes, while the Prussians were yet 
hesitating to secede from the coalition of 
sovereigns, when peace might probably 
have been renewed, without any other 
annexation than that of Avignon to the 
original territory of France. But the 
spirit of anti-jacobinism was as yet so 
strongly bent on the restoration of royal 
unrestraint, that with a sanguinary san- 
guineness, which the Brunswick mani- 
festo will too long record, the opportu- 
nity was lost. 
During the negociations of Lille, if a 
very liberal confidence, bordering on 
personal despotism, had been bestowed on 
the noble agent, sufficient to authorise his 
bold and instantaneous decision there, it 
is likely that an equitable peace could 
have been concluded, prior to the vic- 
tory of the war-faction in the directory 
of France. But anti-jacobinism had 
still its prejudices to overcome against 
a peace with regicides; still some gay 
hopes to gamble upon, still some inkling 
to turn up a king. This opportunity 
again was lost. 
The same cavalier indifference, which 
prevailed about the continuance or ces- 
sation of the war, prevailed about its 
conduct. Dodging invasions, which 
might provoke and could not maim, 
were tried at Quiberon and elsewhere, 
as if merely to profess our royalism, and 
kill off our guests. Corsica was idly 
taken under our protection, because it 
preferred a constitution with half a kin 4 
to a constitution without one. It was 
evacuated still more idly. If retained 
until peace, it might have been allotted 
to the king of Sardinia, in exchange 
for his Savoy or Piedmont. This, to 
men of honour, was always a sufficient 
motive fortheretention. But the even. 
* In what proportion the people were divided for and against the spirit of the govern- 
ment, may. be inferred from the petitions presented on this occasion: there were 65 petitions 
(says our author, p. 289) with $0,000 siguatures for, and 94 petitions with 136,000 siena- 
tures ogainet the bills. 
